Unemployment was perhaps the major problem confronting European society at the time in which this book was first published in 1987, and is arguably still the case today. This collection of essays by British and German historians contributes to the debate by taking a close look at unemployment in the Weimar Republic. What groups were most severely affected, and why? How did they react? How effective were welfare and job creation schemes? Did unemployment fuel social instability and political extremism? How far was unemployment a cause of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the triumph of the Third Reich? Did the Nazis solve the unemployment problem by peaceful Keynsianism or through massive rearmament? This book is ideal for students of history, sociology, and economics.

Originally published in 1991 this book provides a multi-faceted analysis of German unemployment between 1873 and 1913. It can also be read as an example of social scientific historiography during the fourth quarter of the twentieth century. Finally, the study has value for the comparative perspective it lends to current economic, social, and political turmoil in Germany, Europe, and the United States. While the precise conditions in the USA differ today, there are clearly still lessons to be learned on both sides of the Atlantic from the economic, social, and political dislocation, which accompanied industrial unemployment in Germany between 1873 and 1913. .

How far was unemployment responsible for the triumph of the Third Reich? This collection of essays by British and German historians examines the collapse of democracy in Weimar Germany from the viewpoint of the social historian.

In 2003–05, Germany undertook extensive labor market reforms which were followed by a large and persistent decline in unemployment. Key elements of the reforms were a drastic cut in benefits for the long-term unemployed and tighter job search and acceptance obligations. Using a large confidential data set from the German social security administration, we find that the reforms were associated with a fall in the earnings of workers returning to work from short-term unemployment relative to workers in long-term employment of about 10 percent. We interpret this as evidence that the reforms strengthened incentives to return to work but, in doing so, they adversely affected post re-entry earnings.

Kurzarbeit (KA), Germany’s short-time work program, is widely credited with saving jobs and supporting domestic demand during the COVID-19 recession. We quantify the impact by exploiting state-level variation in exposure to the pandemic shock and KA take-up. We construct a shift-share measure of the labor demand shock and instrument KA take-up using the pre-existing, state-specific share of workers eligible for KA. We find, first, that KA was crucial in mitigating unemployment: absent its expansion the unemployment rate would have increased by an additional 3 pp on average at the trough of the recession. Second, KA also bolstered domestic demand: the contraction in consumption could have been 2 to 3 times larger absent the program. Finally, we provide preliminary evidence on the sensitivity of the medium-run reallocation of resources to the prevalence of jobretention schemes during the Global Financial Crisis.

Comparison of data collecting and measurement methodology and definitions used for calculating unemployment rates in Germany, Federal Republic and the USA - describes data collecting systems and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics adjustment method; compares national and ILO definitions; discusses effect of short time working and early retirement programmes, and the incidence of underemployment and disguised unemployment in German unemployment rates. References, statistical tables.